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Dr. Norah Patten is an aeronautical engineer and became Ireland’s first scientist-astronaut candidate with Project PoSSUM (Polar Suborbital Science in the Upper Mesosphere) in 2017.
Ever since a family trip to the NASA Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio at the age of 11, Norah has been reaching for the stars, and now, she feels her dream is a lot closer than ever before.
Speaking on Dermot and Dave, the Mayo woman explains how excited she is by the likes of Elon Musk's SpaceX project and Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin service, "thankfully we have these very wealthy people putting a lot of money into spaceflight".
Legends 😁 thanks so much for having me on, fab to meet you guys in person. I'll hopefully be meeting @Maeryodonnell soon and we'll post you a selfie 🚀👩🚀 https://t.co/FUpUHkjUlL pic.twitter.com/Km9XsBA5Us
— Dr. Norah Patten (@SpaceNorah) May 24, 2019
These private missions are where Norah sees the future of space exploration, "for me, as an Irish person, even going through the European Space agency astronaut, I don't think that's a possibility for my generation".
All her training has launched her to the top of the pile of Irish hopefuls but until the opportunity comes knocking, Norah is doing her bit for the cosmos by inspiring others in this country.
Patten also has some game-changing news about a PoSSUM competition to get a secondary-level students project from Ireland on board a zero-gravity flight.
Announcement day has arrived! Stay tuned - this afternoon we'll be announcing the winner of @ICompIE @PoSSUMAstronaut Ireland student experiment that will fly @NRC_CNRC this October 🚀👩🚀 pic.twitter.com/W48XGw2pFu
— Dr. Norah Patten (@SpaceNorah) May 23, 2019
She has been blown away by the support she received since the last time we spoke with her on the show saying it has been, "so much more fantastic than I could have planned for".
Check out her chat in full by pressing the play button on screen.
